I'm wondering what sort of data Cummings could provide that would answer all the questions for good or ill. The data track of where his phone was on all the relevant days would possibly be one such.
Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
1) WTAF.. 2) when in a hole he does seem stupid enough to keep digging.
Unless he is just going to resign
A press conference to announce your own resignation seems rather over the top for an appointee - plausible but unlikely to be an endearing move.
Clearly they're reflecting on the press coverage but the problem with talking about it more is, well, that it means you're talking about it more. Unless some brilliant evidence is going to be revealed that could only be revealed by Cummings I don't see anything positive deriving from this. Unless he's a hidden gem of a performer in front of the media this could be more of a car-crash than yesterday.
I don't understand why they are doing this. Theresa May must be pleased she's on the verge of being supplanted as worst PM and worst media operator of all time.
But the game theory says this is the best possible move at this stage in the game.
Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
1) WTAF.. 2) when in a hole he does seem stupid enough to keep digging.
Unless he is just going to resign
A press conference to announce your own resignation seems rather over the top for an appointee - plausible but unlikely to be an endearing move.
Clearly they're reflecting on the press coverage but the problem with talking about it more is, well, that it means you're talking about it more. Unless some brilliant evidence is going to be revealed that could only be revealed by Cummings I don't see anything positive deriving from this. Unless he's a hidden gem of a performer in front of the media this could be more of a car-crash than yesterday.
I don't understand why they are doing this. Theresa May must be pleased she's on the verge of being supplanted as worst PM and worst media operator of all time.
I don't see what evidence can be presented that will convince people it was OK for Cummings to drive up to Durham when so many others followed the rules as proscribed by the government. I may be wrong, but I suspect most people are not angry because he might have broken the law, but because he broke what they perceive to be the spirit of the lockdown which so many observed at so much personal cost.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
The fact that the only other country in the world who thinks having senior clergy forming a part of their legislature by dint of their office is Iran really ought to make more people think about this than seem to.
The Vatican city might disagree
Ok, but do you think adding them to the list makes it better?
I'm wondering what sort of data Cummings could provide that would answer all the questions for good or ill. The data track of where his phone was on all the relevant days would possibly be one such.
Only if he carried it all the time and it was switched on. Would he need it on a trip to Barnard Castle?
Putting Cummings in front of the press shows just how desperate Johnson is to keep him. Prime Ministers should not be so dependent on one individual, especially one who is not elected. It is weakness, not strength.
And begs the question, why???
Dominic Cummings fronting up to the press would normally mean he is resigning but these are not normal times, and Cummings may well believe not only that he has done nothing wrong, but that he can convince the media and the country that he is father of the year. A bit like Blair saying for years afterwards that he was not going to apologise for removing Saddam Hussein.
Surely fronting up to the press normally means the person is NOT resigning, or at least not yet?
If you're resigning, why bother? It fuels the story. You simply put out a short statement, either accepting wrongdoing or (more likely) denying it but saying you are doing the honourable thing to avoid becoming a distraction and would appreciate privacy for the sake of your family. That's the standard form.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
No.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
Dominic Cummings to make a public statement and answer questions
Unique surely
1) WTAF.. 2) when in a hole he does seem stupid enough to keep digging.
Unless he is just going to resign
A press conference to announce your own resignation seems rather over the top for an appointee - plausible but unlikely to be an endearing move.
Clearly they're reflecting on the press coverage but the problem with talking about it more is, well, that it means you're talking about it more. Unless some brilliant evidence is going to be revealed that could only be revealed by Cummings I don't see anything positive deriving from this. Unless he's a hidden gem of a performer in front of the media this could be more of a car-crash than yesterday.
I don't understand why they are doing this. Theresa May must be pleased she's on the verge of being supplanted as worst PM and worst media operator of all time.
I think he is being pushed to do this. "It's your problem Dominic. You sort it".
I don't think he is experienced in this and has a short fuse. It should be interesting.
Off topic but the revelation this morning that Post Office is now reviewing around 900 prosecutions that may have relied on Horizon data should be getting a lot more attention. This is miscarriage of justice on an industrial scale.
We now know that Post Office prosecuted an average of 7.7 people (subpostmasters, assistants and employees) per year in the 6 years leading up to the introduction of Horizon. The next 6 years saw that jump to 55 per year. This high rate continued until Second Sight, the firm of forensic accountants engaged by Post Office to investigate cases as part of a mediation scheme which collapsed acrimoniously, produced their first report which suggested all was not well with Horizon. This report came out in July 2013. That year there were only 27 prosecutions. Since then there have only been 4 prosecutions, all of them in 2015.
The Civil Service is clearly trying to brush this under a carpet, trotting out the line that this was all a long time ago and that many people were involved so no-one should be held accountable, so all that is needed is an independent review to make sure lessons are learned rather than an judge-led public inquiry to establish what went wrong and who was responsible.
Yes, this is a massive scandal.
Dozens of people have been imprisoned, and hundreds have lost their businesses due to yet another civil service IT project f***-up, the failure of which no-one appears to be held accountable.
Its how the alphabet soup operates.
Government in general in this country is both mediocre and deeply self-serving.
Just as well that the PM has a senior advisor who's determined to turn the whole civil service apple cart upside-down then. Oh...
Cummings aside, looking at the amended regulations it is now legal to move home.
My question is: Is it therefore legal to move in with others? I don't see anything in the guidance specifically prohibiting it or addressing it at all.
@Philip_Thompson get a grip man, the “child care” story is clearly bollocks. I reckon that he and his wife just fancied self-isolating in Durham with a big garden, rather than in the Smoke.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Of course not. Because you've swallowed whole the nonsense that the government has put out in Cummings's defence.
The upshot of all this is that people - or at least people like you - now believe that both the regulations and the quarantine guidance are in effect optional.
I don't mean in the sense that "If they break the rules, I'm not going to bother keeping them." I mean in the sense that the government is really saying people don't have to obey them if they don't want to.
The guidance was always optional. The law is not.
If your families requirements go against the guidance then you can legally act accordingly. The same can not be said about the law.
Trying to get my head round why Cummings is going to do a press conference.
I think that he might of been told that if this carries on he is going to get sacked so he has decided to give this one last shot at putting his side of the story across presumably in a more coherent fashion than Boris did. They may also feel they have reached the "well we can't make it any worse" stage so he might as well try. They might hope to get some sympathy of the general public by making it about his child or wife but I don't think that will happen unless the media come across as too aggressive.
Personally I think that they would have a better chance of getting through this by ignoring the press on the issue and carry on tackling the pandemic. There is probably only 3 or 4 more days of this before we would move on to other things like schools opening or getting to stage 2 etc. Major issues that are going to arise for the economy and transport in the coming days and weeks ahead and we would have to focus on them.
Having a press conference from Dom feels like there is a greater chance of adding fuel to the fire than putting it out.
I think it means he will attempt to stay - and will probably succeed. Provided he shows some contrition. At the very least the, “I’m sorry I’ve upset everyone” apology. But probably needs to be a bit more than that.
I’ve had £140 at 4/7 with Ladbrokes that he stays. So I’m all GREEN to smallish amounts.
Boris will think this is like the RAF at Dunkirk initially blamed by many in the Army and Navy for not doing enough.. When in reality just because they could not be seen on the ground , they were giving their all high above in the air.
Were they? I thought the decision was made to keep the RAF in reserve in large part for the forthcoming battle of Britain where we would have the advantages of additional fuel, radar and time as opposed to trying to fight over France where the Germans had all the advantages.
Yes recent research shows how effective they were in stopping many attacks. Especially with the new spitfire, when up against the German airforce.
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Is there a translation of this into English?
The Gallardo had a single clutch automated gearbox which widely slagged off because car enthusiasts and journalists can be quite reactionary. However it was no worse or better than comparable systems until Porsche came along with PDK which was demonstrably better than both manual and automatic transmissions.
Interestingly, or perhaps not, the single clutch automated transmission lives on today in the Lamborghini Aventador because of packaging constraints and the fact that customers like the drama of its brutal shifts.
We must not understate that although some converted red to blue seats have massive Tory majorities, others are very marginal.
The top 60 or so Labour target seats have majorities under 7000. That's not exactly a lot of people to piss off before the Tory majority gets torpedoed.
I am not persuaded that the size of the majority is as key as the speed with which the pendulum swung. Whilst acknowledging that longer term demographic trends are present, it is far from obvious that a sudden big - indeed massive in several cases - swing such as was seen in some seats such as Sedgefield, Durham NW, Grimsby,Leigh, Bassetlaw et al implies that they have changed their alleigance on a permanent basis - particularly in the context of the Corbyn and Brexit factors no longer being relevant. I suspect that such seats with substantial Tory majorities in 2019 are more winnable for Labout than many others which on paper are far more marginal.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
No.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
No. The Regulations have to be read in conjunction with their parent legislation, the 1984 Act, and interpreted accordingly. So it’s wholly illegal.
I see it as "super father doing the right thing" followed by known in advance questions he has written himself and rehearsed the answers for, from @bbclaurak, @peston and other sympathetic journalists.
Might satisfy a few people.
If its an actual press conf. with hostile questions there is a good chance he will swear, get aggressive and show everybody what a complete twat he is.
@Philip_Thompson get a grip man, the “child care” story is clearly bollocks. I reckon that he and his wife just fancied self-isolating in Durham with a big garden, rather than in the Smoke.
Don’t be so naive.
And you say that because you have what mystical insight into his families requirements?
I'm wondering what sort of data Cummings could provide that would answer all the questions for good or ill. The data track of where his phone was on all the relevant days would possibly be one such.
I suspect he made a deranged decision while panic stricken after they both became unwell.
It seems a human thing to do but something Cummings is ashamed about because it makes him look weak and unreliable.
@Philip_Thompson get a grip man, the “child care” story is clearly bollocks. I reckon that he and his wife just fancied self-isolating in Durham with a big garden, rather than in the Smoke.
Don’t be so naive.
And you say that because you have what mystical insight into his families requirements?
We must not understate that although some converted red to blue seats have massive Tory majorities, others are very marginal.
The top 60 or so Labour target seats have majorities under 7000. That's not exactly a lot of people to piss off before the Tory majority gets torpedoed.
I am not persuaded that the size of the majority is as key as the speed with which the pendulum swung. Whilst acknowledging that longer term demographic trends are present, it is far from obvious that a sudden big - indeed massive in several cases - swing such as was seen in some seats such as Sedgefield, Durham NW, Grimsby,Leigh, Bassetlaw et al implies that they have changed their alleigance on a permanent basis - particularly in the context of the Corbyn and Brexit factors no longer being relevant. I suspect that such seats with substantial Tory majorities in 2019 are more winnable for Labout than many others which on paper are far more marginal.
It is cultural change, see also Australia, the US, Canada and France and Italy.
The skilled white working class is moving right, the upper middle class to the liberal left
@Philip_Thompson get a grip man, the “child care” story is clearly bollocks. I reckon that he and his wife just fancied self-isolating in Durham with a big garden, rather than in the Smoke.
Don’t be so naive.
How can it be bollox? Assuming one spouse DID indeed have covid, the other had reason to assume that he would eventually too (as he did). In anticipation, they acted quickly to ensure the best care for the child. It may prove to be illegal but it isn`t bollox. As I posted earlier my wife and I had the same discussion and our children are much older that their son (who may/may not be autistic).
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
The Spanish government showed quite clearly in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
There have been some more conservative Bishops eg Richard Chartres when Bishop of London or Michael Nazir Ali when Bishop of Rochester but really as long as bishops can do the job it does not matter how bishops vote.
I agree they should avoid public statements on party politics however
Do you object to Their Lordships Spiritual sitting in the House of Lords?
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
No.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
But then you've destroyed your argument for Johnson to punt it into an inquiry.
He just needed to work through the timeline and all relevant facts with Cummings, then come out, lay out those facts, and explain his conclusion.
You're badly wrong on the law, by the way. The position was never that ANY childcare motive was a reasonable excuse. It was always about strict necessity, and the vast majority of parents quite rightly concluded that this meant struggling on as a family unit at the primary residence unless and until it became impossible. This "if you've got kids, go with your gut" bullshit is purely an innovation of convenience established in the last 48 hours.
OT Japanese state of emergency ended, Tokyo down to single-digits cases.
Compared to the UK it seems like a data point in support of Abe's "be kind of rubbish but not entirely fucking unbelievably astonishingly incompetent" strategy.
Japan is a very intriguing case. Remember that blogpost written by some mega-brain datageek, linked by Alastair Meeks, pointing out how Japan was quietly heading into catastrophe.
We all nodded and said How wise (me included) and yet it was total nonsense. Japan has barely been grazed.
But nobody is quite sure why. Japan's social structure, its reserved people, a genetic anomaly shared across East Asia? Lack of BAME migrants? Cleanliness? Slenderness? Dumb-ass luck?
It's all bollocks, it's not an anomaly, they acted fast. We know lockdowns work, and we mostly know a most of the activity prevented in lockdowns doesn't really spread the virus much. So if you do the subset of things that has a lot of effect before things get out of control, you don't need police going around arresting sunbathers or whatever.
What confused things was that there was a period in mid-March when cases went flat and people relaxed too soon, then saw it and tightened again, and a lot of foreign media showed up during that period and saw people walking around looking at cherry blossoms and reported that there was no response. But there was a response, it was just weak at that point (pre-re-tightening), and not really focused on avoiding cherry blossoms, since you can't get the virus from cherry blossoms.
Also there's a not-entirely-bonkers case that Tokyo (not Japan) was trying pretty hard not to find cases at one point, and having reported that there was no response some English-speaking media reported that as "ahah, must be a huge cover-up", but if there was a cover-up, it can't have been very big in the grand scheme of things.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
The Spanish government showed quite clearly in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
The same Spanich government you wanted to invade over Gib? Or is my memory wrong?
@Philip_Thompson get a grip man, the “child care” story is clearly bollocks. I reckon that he and his wife just fancied self-isolating in Durham with a big garden, rather than in the Smoke.
Don’t be so naive.
How can it be bollox? Assuming one spouse DID indeed have covid, the other had reason to assume that he would eventually too (as he did). In anticipation, they acted quickly to ensure the best care for the child. It may prove to be illegal but it isn`t bollox. As I posted earlier my wife and I had the same discussion and our children are much older that their son (who may/may not be autistic).
As I said, I think they just wanted somewhere more convenient to self-isolate. That’s entirely understandable, but unforgivable from the person who wrote the rules. I doubt their childcare arrangement had anything to do with it, and has been pulled out of someone’s ass in order to “pull at heartstrings” as an attempt to justify.
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
The former is only likely if Boris extends the transition period and does not end free movement and leave the single market as Leavers in the red wall switch from Tory to Brexit Party.
The latter is only likely if we go to WTO terms Brexit and leave the single market and Tory Remain voters in the South go Labour or LD.
One might happen but not both
You’re fighting the last war. Still. Don’t you get it? Brexit is “done” to Northern leaver voters. See the WhatsApp message I posted from exactly your kind of new voter. Boris is currently shitting all over them.
Wrong, absolutely wrong.
Every poll shows the vast majority of Leave voters want to end the transition period. End of conversation.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
There have been some more conservative Bishops eg Richard Chartres when Bishop of London or Michael Nazir Ali when Bishop of Rochester but really as long as bishops can do the job it does not matter how bishops vote.
I agree they should avoid public statements on party politics however
Do you object to Their Lordships Spiritual sitting in the House of Lords?
I'd like to know if HYUFD objects to the Moderators of the various Presbyterian kirks of Scotland also sitting in the Lords, and if so, why.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
No.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
But then you've destroyed your argument for Johnson to punt it into an inquiry.
He just needed to work through the timeline and all relevant facts with Cummings, then come out, lay out those facts, and explain his conclusion.
You're badly wrong on the law, by the way. The position was never that ANY childcare motive was a reasonable excuse. It was always about strict necessity, and the vast majority of parents quite rightly concluded that this meant struggling on as a family unit at the primary residence unless and until it became impossible. This "if you've got kids, go with your gut" bullshit is purely an innovation of convenience established in the last 48 hours.
I said an inquiry would have made political sense. Not that it was required.
It's certainly possibly for Johnson to say this was OK. But it's politically better to have an independent person say so.
Boris will think this is like the RAF at Dunkirk initially blamed by many in the Army and Navy for not doing enough.. When in reality just because they could not be seen on the ground , they were giving their all high above in the air.
Were they? I thought the decision was made to keep the RAF in reserve in large part for the forthcoming battle of Britain where we would have the advantages of additional fuel, radar and time as opposed to trying to fight over France where the Germans had all the advantages.
Yes recent research shows how effective they were in stopping many attacks. Especially with the new spitfire, when up against the German airforce.
One thing to remember about Dunkirk is that the Battle of France was still in progress and France would not surrender for another three or four weeks, with RAF fighters operating from airfields in France. It was these from which replacements were towards the end held back but the squadrons there put up a good show against battle-hardened Luftwaffe pilots with better planes.
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
The former is only likely if Boris extends the transition period and does not end free movement and leave the single market as Leavers in the red wall switch from Tory to Brexit Party.
The latter is only likely if we go to WTO terms Brexit and leave the single market and Tory Remain voters in the South go Labour or LD.
One might happen but not both
You’re fighting the last war. Still. Don’t you get it? Brexit is “done” to Northern leaver voters. See the WhatsApp message I posted from exactly your kind of new voter. Boris is currently shitting all over them.
Wrong, absolutely wrong.
Every poll shows the vast majority of Leave voters want to end the transition period. End of conversation.
I see even your WhatsApper did not actually say he was now voting Starmer Labour
I didn’t say he was going to vote for Labour. However him wanting Boris to resign is not insignificant.
And I said nothing about whether Leave voters wanted to end the transition period or not. What I did question is whether they will treat it as their primary concern.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
It would be ignored because the Unionist community would boycott an illegal referendum. It would massively backfire and would only happen if the bampots take over from Nicola.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
The Spanish government showed quite clearly in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
The same Spanich government you wanted to invade over Gib? Or is my memory wrong?
As Thatcher showed in the Falklands British sovereign territory must be freed if invaded
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
It would be ignored because the Unionist community would boycott an illegal referendum. It would massively backfire and would only happen if the bampots take over from Nicola.
I’m struck at how forcefully the bishops have condemned all this. They don’t have much influence nowadays but still, they have been remarkably forthright.
They and their clergy will have seen the pain of people at funerals of loved ones they were unable to see, unable to be with, unable to comfort.
Without getting into the rights or wrongs of this case, in my experience most senior Anglican clergy are rather to the left of Corbyn, and very pro EU. Thier condemnation of Cummings when provided with a suitable pretext is probably about as genuine as that of every Labour MP.
Interestingly, in the conservative evangelical bit of the CofE, which is the only bit not in terminal decline, your average minister tends to trend Tory - but this part of the church is largely unrepresented at the top.
My vicar is Labour but most Anglican clergy in my experience tend to be more LD.
Most Anglican church goers tend to be Tory though which creates a discrepancy which is not there in the Catholic church for example, where most of the clergy and congregation are Labour or the evangelical church where most ministers and the congregation are conservative (albeit the Pentecostal church is more Labour)
I was enraged by the Bishop of Liverpool sticking his two pennyworth in. The bishops should mind their own fecking business. They are meant to be apolitical. Its one of the reasons that the congregation and the clergy are not of the same mind. As a churchgoer myself, I find this tricky at times.
There is talk of the culling of bishops. There are 108 of them and only 42 dioceses and its about time something was done about it.
There have been some more conservative Bishops eg Richard Chartres when Bishop of London or Michael Nazir Ali when Bishop of Rochester but really as long as bishops can do the job it does not matter how bishops vote.
I agree they should avoid public statements on party politics however
Do you object to Their Lordships Spiritual sitting in the House of Lords?
I'd like to know if HYUFD objects to the Moderators of the various Presbyterian kirks of Scotland also sitting in the Lords, and if so, why.
I think we do need some guidance about whether if someone in a household develops symptoms it's OK to send the children to be looked after by someone else.
A lot of people here seem to be assuming that's OK. Presumably a lot of people in the country are taking that message from what the government has said, too.
Like the DCMO said in early April?
Thanks. My impression was that you thought it was OK, and you seem to be confirming that.
But if it's official that it's OK, both the statutory regulations and the official guidance about quarantine need to be amended. Because as they stand now it's forbidden.
I've seen nothing in statute that forbids this.
Certainly guidance is trickier, the simplistic guidance says not to move but then when asked about more unique situations then the simplistic answers don't work. But that's the distinction between guidance and statute. Guidance is a guide for most scenarios not the law for all.
Can you not see the fundamental contradiction between your position a short while ago that the guidance was totally clear and complaints that it wasn't are manufactured nonsense, and your position now that Johnson should have punted this off into an inquiry? I'd have thought it was fairly glaring.
In terms of the law, you're straightforwardly wrong. The law very clearly and explicitly forbade what Cummings did, but gave a "reasonable excuse" defence which Cummings has to make out.
An analogy is murder and self defence. The law is crystal clear that killing someone recklessly or with intent is murder, and forbidden. But there is a self defence exception which is for the defendant to demonstrate.
No.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
But then you've destroyed your argument for Johnson to punt it into an inquiry.
He just needed to work through the timeline and all relevant facts with Cummings, then come out, lay out those facts, and explain his conclusion.
You're badly wrong on the law, by the way. The position was never that ANY childcare motive was a reasonable excuse. It was always about strict necessity, and the vast majority of parents quite rightly concluded that this meant struggling on as a family unit at the primary residence unless and until it became impossible. This "if you've got kids, go with your gut" bullshit is purely an innovation of convenience established in the last 48 hours.
I said an inquiry would have made political sense. Not that it was required.
It's certainly possibly for Johnson to say this was OK. But it's politically better to have an independent person say so.
But the problem politically is that it would have undermined the position that the rules are (or were) clear. That creates its own major problems.
The PM cannot reasonably say BOTH that the rules are clear and that it's all so complex he needs a third party to dig into it for several days. Indeed, people in the real world cannot fiddle about for days working out whether an activity is compliant, let alone appoint someone to look into it for them.
Additionally, either the inquiry is genuinely independent, in which case there is a very good chance that Johnson loses Cummings (you disagree with my assessment on the law but how lucky do you feel?) or it isn't, in which case you create a further problem.
And in any event it buys you days at most, and the turd in the room won't stop stinking in such a short period.
(Edit + the PM can't publicly say, as you have that it isn't required but makes political sense. He has to justify it on the basis that it is required because the rules aren't clear).
We must not understate that although some converted red to blue seats have massive Tory majorities, others are very marginal.
The top 60 or so Labour target seats have majorities under 7000. That's not exactly a lot of people to piss off before the Tory majority gets torpedoed.
I am not persuaded that the size of the majority is as key as the speed with which the pendulum swung. Whilst acknowledging that longer term demographic trends are present, it is far from obvious that a sudden big - indeed massive in several cases - swing such as was seen in some seats such as Sedgefield, Durham NW, Grimsby,Leigh, Bassetlaw et al implies that they have changed their alleigance on a permanent basis - particularly in the context of the Corbyn and Brexit factors no longer being relevant. I suspect that such seats with substantial Tory majorities in 2019 are more winnable for Labout than many others which on paper are far more marginal.
It is cultural change, see also Australia, the US, Canada and France and Italy.
The skilled white working class is moving right, the upper middle class to the liberal left
Such changes do not happen suddenly over a period of barely a couple of years.The underlying gradual demographic shift is likely to continue , but that does not mean that massive swings - which were largely caused by specific factors - will be sustained.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
If Sturgeon does not do that based on the 2021 landslide Holyrood victory she is toast. It will then be down to Westminster going to International courts and explaining why they think they can deny people their wishes as per law.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
It would be ignored because the Unionist community would boycott an illegal referendum. It would massively backfire and would only happen if the bampots take over from Nicola.
Utter garbage, they are perfectly entitled to have an advisory referendum any time they like , that is why it is advisory. It would then put Westminster in a pickle as under International law if any nation wants to be independent it has the right to be under Law. How could England then defend its position against the will of the Scottish people. We will see very soon how they manage that.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
The Spanish government showed quite clearly in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
You real are a thick halfwitted moron. You kid on here you went to university and got a degree, given the crap you post I doubt you ever made it past primary school. Scotland is not Catalonia, Spanish Constitution is not the same as UK.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
Ridiculous. NO voters would boycott it en masse, the vote would then be morally void; the Scottish government would be in court if they tried to enforce the result, and the politicians responsible would be found guilty, and serve time.
Sturgeon knows this. Which is why she, and any other sane SNP leader, would never attempt it.
Another Scottish expert spouts absolute crap. We will see what the 2021 election is fought on.
Sky gets spain situation wrong again. Most of the country has had bar terraces open for two weeks now 50% capacity 2m distancing, table service only. Today half the country goes to phase two where restaurants and bars can open indoors with the above conditions. More retail outlets will be open commercial centers etc at 40% capacity etc etc just annoying Sky over simplify it. If you break the rules you get fined the one thing they are losing control of is inter province travel which is banned as more and more second homers turn up from Madrid and Murcia which is a concern. We’re still in phase 1 Valencia but can get a meal and drink out if I want.
At least you have the weather for outdoor restaurants and bars, it must make it easier to loosen the regs. Although we've had good weather throughout this so far we know it won't last. Pleased you seem to be up and about again, we should be at a villa in Xabia right now instead of stuck in our garden, such is life!
Does the 2m rule apply between diners or between tables? Either way, habitual single diners like myself would not be popular for taking a whole table to themselves. Maybe we need a club for mutual support/approval if that happens in the UK?
I am not clear that Cummings has in fact broken any rules.
I keep asking this. Even if people swallow the bizarre argument that the child was in some kind of imminent danger of harm and had to be taken to Durham, WHAT CONCEIVABLE JUSTIFICATION WAS THERE FOR CUMMINGS'S SYMPTOMATIC WIFE TO BE DRIVEN TO THE OTHER END OF THE COUNTRY TOO?
Has Cummings broken any rules. This question has to be broken down into parts:
1) What do you mean by 'rule'. This can cover law, advice, guidance and practice. For example there is no 'law' about social distancing but lots of guidance. Let's take it to mean 'law'.
2) The relevant law is fairly simple. It is illegal to leave the premises you are living in without 'reasonable excuse'. The list of 13 excuses in the section is only exemplary and not exhaustive. The section says so.
3) The PM has majored on going to and staying at Durham. For this to be legal all DC needed was a 'reasonable excuse' to leave his premises and take up residence in another. This is at least arguable (though BTW not to me remotely convincing).
4) The Barnard Castle trip is more interesting, because it has neither been admitted or denied - so it almost certainly is true. No explanation has been offered. In practice that must be either because there isn't one or they are only going to suggest one if necessity dictates, as the ice is so thin.
5) If he left his premises to go to Barnard Castle without a reasonable excuse he broke the law. Whether he should have been isolating or not at the time makes no difference. The same would be true for everyone going anywhere on 12 April.
I agree. I support parents doing the best in their eyes for their children. If that's all there is to the story I will accept parents doing what parents do for their children just as I would for any parent on any side of politics.
If there's other trips without a reasonable explanation then the law has been broken and he should go.
I strongly disagreed with Boris on a pedantic bit of nomenclature. I think it's reasonable to say that Cummings followed 'the instincts of a parent'. I find it entirely unreasonable to say he followed 'the instincts of every parent'. Every parent is not the same and not every parent has the same instincts.
Two parents in the same situation can make two different choices and neither be wrong.
Yes, that's absolutely right. I would have disregarded the lockdown if I had thought it in my child'sbest interests to do so AND there would be minimal risk to others. I'm far from sure his action makes sense however. Seem illogical and even a little heartless.
Was he really thinking of the kid, or himself?
Question - how old are Mr Cummings parents?
The childcare was from his sister not his parents.
But apparently all they did was leave food at the doorstep?
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Is there a translation of this into English?
Sorry, I’m still transfixed by a cutaway animation of my Rohloff Speedhub....
If the former “red wall” does crumble, and the liberal-elite Tory home-county seats trend further Labour or Lib Dem, then there’s a possibility of Keir getting the swing he needs to easily form a Government.
Johnson is a dead duck, and he knows it. He’s got max 24 months.
Johnson needs something big to save his Churchillian self-image. Brexit insufficient as it will be accepted to be idiocy by future generations.
What other “biggies” remain for a dead duck PM? War within next year seems profoundly unlikely. Answer: regain English independence.
SNP+SGP win Scottish GE next year and request new Edinburgh Agreement. Johnson negotiates one with them.
During referendum run-up, after flirting with No, Johnson eventually plumps for Yes (cf run-up to Brexit referendum).
Johnson and Yes win.
Johnson thinks he is the new Churchill (or Athelstan or King Billy or whoever).
England (still clinging on to Wales) and Scotland join UN.
NI finally f.... off, to everyone’s immense relief (except Dublin’s).
If Boris even considers allowing indyref2 next year in breach of the Tory manifesto let alone backs Yes he will be ousted as Tory leader in less than 5 minutes.
Some things really are unforgiveable
Since when did Tories care about manifesto commitments?
- “We are opposed to a second independence referendum and stand with the majority of people in Scotland, who do not want to return to division and uncertainty.“
The second part of that sentence implies that if the majority of people in Scotland change their minds, the Conservatives might too.
Whatever, finessing manifestos is Chapter One in How to Govern for Dummies.
That is clear, the Tories oppose indyref2 for at least a generation as promised in 2014.
As the Spanish government showed in Catalonia illegal referendums can be ignored
What’s the point? What is the actual point? I have no dog in this fight, I’m probably the only person on this site (and there are probably less than 1000 people nationwide who agree with me) who thinks the basic sovereign entity should be the municipality rather than the nation state, so I think the UK should be broken into smaller units and, logically, then Scotland and England too. Sadly that’s never going to happen - we all have to live with the possible, and you describe the impossible. Keeping a very well defined cultural and national entity in a Union against its will is unsustainable. Sooner or later, unless there is a shift in public opinion (something in deliberately don’t comment on) it will happen. If you want to make your case legalistic arguments about “illegal referendums” are counterproductive.
In a generation indyref2 might happen but not until then, even Quebec had to wait 15 years for its second referendum on independence from Canada
Have you though through the actual, real world, consequences of the Scottish Government organising their own referendum, winning it, and having it ignored by Westminster.
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
It would be ignored because the Unionist community would boycott an illegal referendum. It would massively backfire and would only happen if the bampots take over from Nicola.
The Scottish Government has passed an act, and gained Royal Assent, giving it the right to organise and hold referendums. Unless an (advisory) Indyref is blocked by the courts, it would be legal. If it is blocked, it would not take place. Simples.
I have had a longstanding loathing of Johnson ever since reading his fucking pig ignorant review of a Lamborghini Gallardo in the early 2000s. However, I had always thought that the British political system ensured that a person who ascended to the office of PM would be, au moins, capable of doing the basics of the jobs. Over the last few days I have come to realise that, at a most basic level, the job of PM is beyond him. It's quite disconcerting even though I am a Johnson hater by trade.
Go on, what did Johnson say about the Gallardo? Was he one of those idiots who loved the shitty first-gen 'flappy paddle' gearboxes?
He just had no fucking idea about the history of Lamborghini or the significance of the Gallardo. It was the first genuine VAG Lambo and the first designed with some accommodation for the realities of mass production.
The E-Gear Gallardos certainly weren't any worse than the Ferrari (F1 shift or whatever the fuck it was called) or BMWs (SMG) of the time. Unfortunately for them Porsche put the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe transmission into the 2005 997 and set a standard that the other OEMs have struggled to match ever since.
Is there a translation of this into English?
Sorry, I’m still transfixed by a cutaway animation of my Rohloff Speedhub....
Comments
Put it this way, the 2016 Referendum was technically advisory, but the consequences of ignoring it would have been an utter disaster. Why would a hypothetical advisory referendum in Scotland be different?
Would he need it on a trip to Barnard Castle?
If you're resigning, why bother? It fuels the story. You simply put out a short statement, either accepting wrongdoing or (more likely) denying it but saying you are doing the honourable thing to avoid becoming a distraction and would appreciate privacy for the sake of your family. That's the standard form.
My point has always been that guidance isn't supposed to cover every scenario and that people should think for themselves.
Guidance is meant to be a guide not the law. I always said that. That Cummings thought what was best for his family and acted accordingly is eminently reasonable and consistent for me - if he's telling the truth.
As for the law yes I believe childcare falls under the reasonable excuse proviso just as the DCMO said nearly two months ago before this came to light in the media. So yes it's legal.
I don't think he is experienced in this and has a short fuse. It should be interesting.
B/F has Leave at 5/4. Could be value.
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1264893630612897792?s=21
My question is:
Is it therefore legal to move in with others?
I don't see anything in the guidance specifically prohibiting it or addressing it at all.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-advice-on-home-moving-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak
Don’t be so naive.
If your families requirements go against the guidance then you can legally act accordingly. The same can not be said about the law.
I think that he might of been told that if this carries on he is going to get sacked so he has decided to give this one last shot at putting his side of the story across presumably in a more coherent fashion than Boris did. They may also feel they have reached the "well we can't make it any worse" stage so he might as well try.
They might hope to get some sympathy of the general public by making it about his child or wife but I don't think that will happen unless the media come across as too aggressive.
Personally I think that they would have a better chance of getting through this by ignoring the press on the issue and carry on tackling the pandemic. There is probably only 3 or 4 more days of this before we would move on to other things like schools opening or getting to stage 2 etc. Major issues that are going to arise for the economy and transport in the coming days and weeks ahead and we would have to focus on them.
Having a press conference from Dom feels like there is a greater chance of adding fuel to the fire than putting it out.
Especially with the new spitfire, when up against the German airforce.
Interestingly, or perhaps not, the single clutch automated transmission lives on today in the Lamborghini Aventador because of packaging constraints and the fact that customers like the drama of its brutal shifts.
Might satisfy a few people.
If its an actual press conf. with hostile questions there is a good chance he will swear, get aggressive and show everybody what a complete twat he is.
It seems a human thing to do but something Cummings is ashamed about because it makes him look weak and unreliable.
The skilled white working class is moving right, the upper middle class to the liberal left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDbRxH9Kiy4
He just needed to work through the timeline and all relevant facts with Cummings, then come out, lay out those facts, and explain his conclusion.
You're badly wrong on the law, by the way. The position was never that ANY childcare motive was a reasonable excuse. It was always about strict necessity, and the vast majority of parents quite rightly concluded that this meant struggling on as a family unit at the primary residence unless and until it became impossible. This "if you've got kids, go with your gut" bullshit is purely an innovation of convenience established in the last 48 hours.
What confused things was that there was a period in mid-March when cases went flat and people relaxed too soon, then saw it and tightened again, and a lot of foreign media showed up during that period and saw people walking around looking at cherry blossoms and reported that there was no response. But there was a response, it was just weak at that point (pre-re-tightening), and not really focused on avoiding cherry blossoms, since you can't get the virus from cherry blossoms.
Also there's a not-entirely-bonkers case that Tokyo (not Japan) was trying pretty hard not to find cases at one point, and having reported that there was no response some English-speaking media reported that as "ahah, must be a huge cover-up", but if there was a cover-up, it can't have been very big in the grand scheme of things.
Every poll shows the vast majority of Leave voters want to end the transition period. End of conversation.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1261323480903147521?s=20
I see even your WhatsApper did not actually say he was now voting Starmer Labour
It's certainly possibly for Johnson to say this was OK. But it's politically better to have an independent person say so.
And I said nothing about whether Leave voters wanted to end the transition period or not. What I did question is whether they will treat it as their primary concern.
The PM cannot reasonably say BOTH that the rules are clear and that it's all so complex he needs a third party to dig into it for several days. Indeed, people in the real world cannot fiddle about for days working out whether an activity is compliant, let alone appoint someone to look into it for them.
Additionally, either the inquiry is genuinely independent, in which case there is a very good chance that Johnson loses Cummings (you disagree with my assessment on the law but how lucky do you feel?) or it isn't, in which case you create a further problem.
And in any event it buys you days at most, and the turd in the room won't stop stinking in such a short period.
(Edit + the PM can't publicly say, as you have that it isn't required but makes political sense. He has to justify it on the basis that it is required because the rules aren't clear).
Edited for grammatical reasons.
Scotland is not Catalonia, Spanish Constitution is not the same as UK.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwje7oz0nc_pAhXDUMAKHdpCA7cQwqsBMAF6BAgKEAk&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4UpwoDmOb4&usg=AOvVaw1_jwaa8_2HvGo1t9dZ4UqA
It gets really interesting at the 4:30 mark(?)